Putting the "Self" in "Paralyzing Self-Consciousness" since the 20th century.

Monday, April 03, 2006

My Guy.

I spend a lot of time in this blog making fun of Consort. This is because I can. This is also because Consort has the style to think most of the snottier things I say about him are funny; he frequently directs his friends to the blogs which itemize his foibles in 12-count Arial typeface. Also, I fear the grand romantic gesture. I grew up in Los Angeles, a place where if people are loudly proclaiming their love for each other in public, the publicity release announcing their separation is about a week away.

But I am going to risk it and tell you two ways in which Consort, quite simply, has rocked this week.

Actually, three ways; first, he continues to live with me, and that’s not a small thing. Consort is an easy-going, gregarious man who enjoys the company of friends. I am a person who reads about executions and pandemics for pleasure and enjoys the company of other like-minded individuals, should I ever meet one.

My last blog was about people who volunteered information in public which was the antithesis of publicly suitable information. So that I am not a total hypocrite, I will warn you in advance to skip the following two paragraphs if you are squeamish, and just take my word that Consort is one of the good ones.

Last week, the stitches came out, and the dead skin on the very top of my head, the point of maximum impact from the accident, came off with the stitches. Underneath the skin there was…bone. I’m not talking “Gee, from the right angle, in bright light, that might be…“.

No, I have exposed bone on the top of my head. For some reason, my doctor didn’t do what I did on first examination, which is run around the room in circles flapping my arms and squealing. In fact, he deemed this “Good” and “Fully capable of healing correctly” and “Please stop squealing”. All I have to do is put Polysporin on it and gauze, do my by now practiced Hide-the-Hole-In-My-Head-Hairdo, and wait for the healing.

Except.

Except I can’t exactly see the bone bit without using two mirrors, and once I’m looking at something using two mirrors, I can’t get my hand holding the Polysporin to move in the right direction. I look in the mirror, and then the reflection in the smaller mirror, and see my hand waving tentatively, somewhere near bone. I think firmly to the hand, “Please move towards the bone”, and my hand drifts off towards the bathroom door. I think louder, “No! The other way!” and the hand wanders somewhere near the bone, but then jogs down abruptly and attempts to Polysporin my nose. My recovery is a two-person job; I need Consort to apply goo to a white bone hillock surrounding by what appears to be unnervingly fresh steak tartar. I also need Consort to periodically look at it and swear to me that he sees improvement in those hours where I imagine the rest of my life spent picking my winter look from the Eva Gabor wig catalogue. He does both without even a murmur of horror.

The final example of his basic goodness and decency began on Friday. Daughter and I went to the animal rescue place where we volunteer, to do the afternoon feed and litter-box cleaning. Since we are the only people who work Friday afternoon, you might imagine my surprise when I found two people back with the cats. Since the rescue organization shares space with a pet store, they had both walked in and took it upon themselves to get to know the cats. Worryingly, one of the women told me how the mother cat had let this woman hold her kittens, which she had done because “I just couldn’t not do it!” (I guess she thought if the mother cat really didn’t want her to hold the kittens, she’d have threatened the woman with a shotgun).

The kittens in question were, at that point, seven days old, and didn’t need to be held by anyone at all, and certainly not some nimrod with impulse-control issues. I shooed the women out as best I could, and called the head of the group. It was decided that the mother and her kittens needed to be someplace quiet and safe; someplace off-site.

Imagine you are at my house three minutes later. Imagine the phone is ringing. Consort picks it up.

CONSORT: Hello?

QUINN: Hi, it’s me. Listen, I have a favor to ask. Can you create a space about, oh, four feet square on the workbench in the garage?

CONSORT: Sure.

(Silence)

CONSORT: Why?

QUINN: Um, we’re going to have houseguests.

(Silence)

CONSORT: How many?

QUINN: Eleven.

At this point, Consort would have had many conversational options at his disposal. He could have gone with “For how long?” or “Why?” or “I’m moving someplace where things like this don’t happen and please forward my mail to Neve Campbell’s house”, but he didn’t -- even though he would be completely within his rights.

You see, this happens a lot; my mother’s nickname for me as a kid was Saint Francis. Consort, until the day he met me, had lived with a domesticated animal for a grand total of two weeks in his entire life. Quinn, the somewhat cute vegetarian of our first date is also Quinn, the woman who keeps an emergency leash in her glove compartment in case she sees a stray dog, and he has gracefully accepted all of it.

So, we now have a sweet mom-cat and ten kittens staying in our garage in a spacious crate. The mother specializes in eating and nursing. She also purrs a lot, possibly in gratitude for lack of strange hands mauling her babies, possibly in hopes of eliciting more food. The babies specialize in having tiny pansy faces, working at opening their eyes and trying to nurse off each other’s ears. Half the time, I check in on them; half the time, Consort does.

I have a head wound which is monitored, salved and gauzed. Half the time, I check in on it; half the time, Consort does.